rhocam ~ I guess there are several trillion cells in a man, and one in an amoeba, so to be generous, lets say that there were a billion. That is one every fifteen years. So in my lifetime I should have seen two evolutionary changes.

And an excellent choice it is. If Catholicism has a future, it is in Latin America. Sadly, everyone from Mormons to Seventh Day Adventists, to plain old generic evangelicals have been successfully vying for those latino souls for quite a while now. But an Argentinian pope will sure as hell bring those souls back to the church of the saints!

And nobody needs or deserves a native born pope as much as Argentina does. I mean, Argentinians have refined the art of hero worship in a way that far surpasses the rest of the civilized world. The general population has (unofficially) canonized their favorite soccer player. And they are a forgiving people. Whenever he screws up, they think about their own sins, and forgive him.

And besides. It is such a great way for the church to thumb its nose at those British infidels for leaving the church so many centuries ago.

I like how they are acting like the choice of a guy from South America has nothing to do with "worldly affairs"-- like the fact that half of the world's Catholics are Latin American. Check out this cool map:

If Francis, aka Jorge, allows contraception, gay marriage, the ordination of women and for priests to marry, he will ensure the survival of the Catholic Church for the forseeable future. If not, all bets are off.

I like how they are acting like the choice of a guy from South America has nothing to do with "worldly affairs"-- like the fact that half of the world's Catholics are Latin American. Check out this cool map:

Now now now, we all know that this was not a political decision. God knew who he wanted, and he whispered the right answer into the Cardinals' ears, and some of the Cardinals, being sinful and whatnot, misheard the right answer the first few times.

If Francis, aka Jorge, allows contraception, gay marriage, the ordination of women and for priests to marry, he will ensure the survival of the Catholic Church for the forseeable future. If not, all bets are off.

I don't know a damn thing about the fellow, but a Colombian friend of mine, (whose wife and stepson are Argentinian), just posted a picture of the new pope with Pinochet. I'm kind of thinking that this might not be an endorsement of the sort of values we might hope for...

Picking Francis for a name is an interesting move. I also hear he took many priests in Argentina to task for refusing to baptize babies of single mothers. If he shakes things up and the church starts to care about people instead of who they live, love, etc. that might be a good thing. Wound not hold my breath. Even if this guy wants to change things he has a huge wall in front of him.

Irony is that the Catholic missionaries came across with the Spanish to the new world and helped bring plague,destruction of culture, and forced Catholicism. Now a Hispanic is head of the Church.

Horacio Verbitsky, a noted Argentinean journalist, alleged in his 2005 book El Silenco that Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, just elected Pope Francis I, collaborated with the Argentinian military regime in concealing political prisoners from the Inter-American Human Rights Commission. Hugh O'Shaughnessy reported on the Roman Catholic Church's close relationship with the Argentinean military regime for the Guardian in 2011.

Bergoglio has also been accused of aiding the regime in asserting its control over the clergy. From PolicyMic:

In 2005, a human rights lawyer filed a criminal complaint against Bergoglio, accusing him of conspiring with the junta in 1976 to kidnap two Jesuit priests, whom he, as superior of the Society of Jesus of Argentina in 1976, had asked to leave their pastoral work following conflict within the Society over how to respond to the new military dictatorship, with some priests advocating a violent overthrow. Bergoglio's spokesman has flatly denied the allegations. No evidence was presented linking the cardinal to this crime.

I'm glad this nonsense is over. It's been painful to watch the media fall over themselves covering this story ad nauseum. Every time I attempted to watch the news on TV, it was taken over by this story of the pope and the masses of delusional people, forgetting all of the other issues going on in the world.

My local channel was interviewing some people on the street yesterday, and it was so very sad to see a grown man (50-60) get all emotional while stating that for the last while (without a pope) he's felt like he didn't have a father; and now......"I have a father".......as he nearly cried. This displayed the state of infancy christianity can keep people.

Watching the millions of sheep-like people watching & waiting for their new "leader" convinces me that most people on our planet are dumber than a sack of hammers.

The Pope is dead (well, almost) long live the Pope. Apparently some people like the idea of a king: accepting the moral authority of someone they did not choose, can't remove from power, who operates in secrecy and does whatever he wants.

I honestly like the medieval pageantry of the whole thing, but I wish people did not take it seriously. The Pope should be like the Queen of England, purely ceremonial with no real power.

Apparently some people like the idea of a king: accepting the moral authority.....

And yet we hear many Catholics today saying that the Catholic church needs to "change" and get with modern times and update it's stance on various issues. What? You need someone to tell you what to do, yet what that is, is what you tell it to tell you!?!?

I thought the last one had to have the name of Peter? Maybe not. Each Bishop of Rome is seen as Peter. That is why I thought it would have been cool to have the black guy from Africa as pope. His name was Peter.

I honestly like the medieval pageantry of the whole thing, but I wish people did not take it seriously. The Pope should be like the Queen of England, purely ceremonial with no real power.

I think a lot of catholics, if not most of them, think of it that way. When I was catholic, I had not special reverence for the pope. Pope-shmope was my attitude. I don't know of any catholics who thought differently. Even my old granny, who thinks well of popes, generally feels empowered to disregard them where her judgments conflict with theirs.

I read an interesting article a little while ago on the American Conservative site. I think it was by Rod Dreher, who is a social conservative, religious zealot and all around prude. But he's not stupid and he makes some good points. The article was titled something like "everyone is protestant now". The point was he knew few people, even amongst catholics, who acknowledged they were subject to a higher moral authority.

On the positive side, he is a Jesuit (vows of poverty) who always took the subway - so I look forward to him striding into the Vatican, and loudly proclaiming "take all these treasures, sell them, and given the money to the needy".....

I have known several hispanic guys named jesus. And since the new pope is hispanic, I sort of thought it would be cool for him to take jesus as his pope name. pope jesus II.

And in his acceptance speech, he would have to say "nobody fucks with the Jesus".

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He never pays attention, he always knows the answer, and he can never tell you how he knows. We can't keep thrashing him. He is a bad example to the other pupils. There's no educating a smart boy.-– Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

On the positive side, he is a Jesuit (vows of poverty) who always took the subway - so I look forward to him striding into the Vatican, and loudly proclaiming "take all these treasures, sell them, and given the money to the needy".....

John Paul #1 did this, he died within weeks... I don't think this pope, who's mettle was tested ( and came up short ) during the Argentinian dictatorship era, will be espousing anything of the sort. Or else he'll be meeting his maker sooner than expected...

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rhocam ~ I guess there are several trillion cells in a man, and one in an amoeba, so to be generous, lets say that there were a billion. That is one every fifteen years. So in my lifetime I should have seen two evolutionary changes.

On the positive side, he is a Jesuit (vows of poverty) who always took the subway - so I look forward to him striding into the Vatican, and loudly proclaiming "take all these treasures, sell them, and given the money to the needy".....